Honors Theses

Date of Award

2015

Document Type

Undergraduate Thesis

Department

Chemical Engineering

First Advisor

Wei-Yin Chen

Relational Format

Dissertation/Thesis

Abstract

The accumulation of CO2 in the atmosphere is a major environmental hazard. As a result various methods for capturing CO2 was suggested. One of such methods included the development of carbon-based adsorbents due to their large surface area and low heat capacity for CO2 capture which was studied in this report. Graphene oxide (GO) was selected as the adsorbent for its potential benefit in CO2 capture. A modified hummers method was used for the synthesis of GO which showed the existence of the hydroxyl (3440 cm-1), epoxyl (1036 cm-1) and carboxyl (1720 cm-1) functional groups in its FTIR spectra. The C/O ratio in the GO was on an average of 2.57. The hydroxyl groups were subjected to a Johnson-Claisen rearrangement which gave rise to an ester functional group attached to GO. The ester group was saponified to carboxylic acid groups and reacted with ethylenediamine to produce an amine-functionalized GO. The amine which increases the CO2/H2 selectivity for pre-combustion CO2 capture got attached to the carboxylic and epoxyl groups in GO. Thermogravimetric analysis was done on the amine-functionalized GO and a weight gain of about 1.173% which signified the adsorption of CO2 was achieved. However, improvements to this procedures need to be taken since a considerable amount of CO2 was not captured in future work.

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